Why Romney Won’t Reveal His Taxes

Writing in Bloomberg Business Week, Joshua Green offers an interesting explanation about why Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney refuses to reveal his income tax returns, apart from two years, 2010 and 2011. He has taken enormous criticism for this, with his secrecy compared to that of the openness of his dad, George Romney, a man who created jobs when he ran Amerian motors (rather than destroyed them, as Romney did at Bain) and who revealed all when he was a candidate. Here is Green’s theory:

As a member of the ultra-rich, Romney probably wasn’t spared major losses. And it’s possible he suffered a large enough capital loss that, carried forward and coupled with his various offshore tax havens, he wound up paying no U.S. federal taxes at all in 2009. If true, this would be politically deadly for him. Even assuming that his return was thoroughly clean and legal—a safe assumption, it seems to me—the fallout would dwarf the controversy that attended the news that Romney had paid a tax rate of just 14 percent in 2010 and that estimated he’d pay a similar rate in 2011.

So, let me get this straight. Romney is a multi-multi-millionaire. He’s the richest candidate to run for president. He has offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands, sheltering his wealth from taxes. He apparently has Swiss accounts too. Yet he is still neck-and-neck with Obama in the polls. Who in the world would even think of voting for a super-rich candidate, raised in wealth, who cannot possibly conceive what it is like to struggle to pay for electricity and food? Someone who paid no taxes in 2009, when ordinary Americans paid lots of them? At a time when millions of Americans are unable to make ends meet? And when Romney represents the party that largely caused this huge mess, not only in America but in the world, by fostering crony capitalism?

The only explanation is, Obama and the Democrats are doing a truly awful horrendous job of explaining to Americans what their vision and policies are. The fact that the presidential race is actually so close is to me mind-boggling.